DuckDuckGo, for the uninitiated, was founded in 2008 and is pitched as the antithesis of Google, insofar as it doesn’t profile or track its users around the web. It also promises to serve the same results to all users, unlike Google.

Duck.com

The core of the problem was that the Duck.com domain redirected to Google.com, much to chagrin of DuckDuckGo, which felt this could be confusing. But in July, Googler Rob Shilkin responded to a Bloomberg reporter’s criticism of the situation by arranging for the redirect to go to a new landing page at on2.com, along with some spiel explaining the backstory and a link to DuckDuckGo.com.

https://twitter.com/robshilkin/status/1020458019174223872

However, this didn’t address DuckDuckGo’s overarching complaint — founder and CEO Gabriel Weinberg, in a now-deleted tweet, sent out his thanks for the new redirect in July, along with a request to buy the domain from Google.